


burn them alive (or you'll burn yourself)

by RK96000



Category: Persona 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:20:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26922031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RK96000/pseuds/RK96000
Summary: The bruises ache.When Akira walks into Leblanc, slow and careful, each step flashing pain before his eyes, he blinks to see the rest of the Phantom Thieves before him, all with smiles on their faces, painfully carefree.And something in Akira burns.
Relationships: Kurusu Akira & Phantom Thieves of Hearts
Comments: 10
Kudos: 184





	burn them alive (or you'll burn yourself)

The bruises ache.

When Akira walks into Leblanc, slow and careful, each step flashing pain before his eyes, he blinks to see the rest of the Phantom Thieves before him, all with smiles on their faces, painfully carefree.

Ryuji grins at him, and a part of him wants to grin back, but the bruises on his legs pulse with every second that passes, and the pain lurks too close underneath the surface for him to smile. 

He says something, drowned out by the flash of  _ FUCK _ from the pain that flies through Akira’s mind when Ryuji settles an arm around his aching shoulder.

Ryuji lets go the next second with unknowing eyes- 

And something in Akira burns.

“How’ve you been?” Ann asks, and the casualness of it all sets his tongue ablaze with a thousand witty quips that he could say to burn the rest of them alive- but, no, they were his friends.

(They had to be.)

“I mean,” Akira says, and licks his cracked lips, despite how it stings (or maybe, because it does). “I died.”

Ann laughs- small and nervous, but she brushes beside it without a single second more of thought. “If you’re joking around, you must be fine!”

And maybe, that’s the crux of it all. 

That if Akira smiles and laughs and jokes around at the exact right time, no one will ever see through it all- no one will ever see everything he said was one grand performance.

Makoto smiles at him, her hand around Haru’s waist, comfortable and as if it had always belonged there. She tells him it’s a relief to see his face and he wonders if she means it’s a relief to see he’s alive at all (or if he’s just reading too much into the words of someone who doesn’t even seem to care).

Ryuji calls Akechi an idiot- and even as Akira knows how that could never be true, how the way Akechi’s gaze burned into his with a twisted intelligence told him everything he ever needed to know, a curiosity they both shared, (how far could they both play their games?).

(Akechi was going to murder him. And yet, why does Akira wish he was besides him still, speaking of pool tables or special bars only to be shown to him and pretending as if nothing more laid beneath?)

“He’s not an idiot,” Akira says instead, quiet but sure, and when everyone stares, uncertain of what to say, Sojiro asks a question, and the conversation resumes on its track, as if he’d never said anything.

The Phantom Thieves are his friends, aren’t they?

(A thousand shared moments, smiles and jokes shared on the train or on the school roof or- but smiles and jokes weren’t all that friendships were made of.)

So why does it burn to speak to them?

Sojiro doesn’t sound upset or sad, but vaguely frustrated, and Akira can’t help but think if it was Futaba, there would at least be  _ something _ in his voice, an undercurrent of concern or worry or-

Or love.

But it was Akira’s own fault for expecting anything, not when he was an intruder living in a cafe’s attic, unloved and unwanted by all (except one- but even then, he knew where they stood).

When his friends say they worried about him, Akira knows it should warm his heart, should calm every worry, but instead, the anger burns harsher and louder.

They were  _ torturing _ him, and-

And no one seems to even care.

Akira lets the rest of the conversation pass, flowing by a constant stream of water he knows he can never truly change, no matter how hard he tries.

When they ask him a question, he responds, a marionette held up only by its strings, and when their eyes ask him to downplay the bruises and downplay the pain, he does.

And if each moment of idle conversation burns (comment after comment after comment on a master plan so brilliant it left the leader broken in pieces on the floor), then no one notices.

_ Did you wonder if I was okay?  _ Akira thinks.  _ Did it even cross your mind? _

But when not a single voice speaks up and each gaze slips away from their leader’s battered form, the thought fades away, overtaken by aching resentment- bitter and harsh, but worst of all, exactly what he expected.

Akira turns away, and the bruises ache.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!!! I have absolutely zero clue whether I'm going to continue this But my friend's galaxy brain about how fucked it is that the phantom thieves don't show that much concern over akira after he was Tortured kind of shoved me into writing this :')  
> Thank you for reading!


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